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The Pure Uncut.

Here are two simple facts: When one is involved with another individual (emotionally, physically, etc.) they are either involved in a legitimate relationship or they are not. However, because no one in the “Not” category wants to publicly admit they are not officially committed to the other person, they have a desire to call it something well, that it’s NOT. This is an obscure place in your mind where you think you have a girlfriend/boyfriend, but no one is claiming these titles. You’re not seeing anyone else but you unsure if they are, but you do all the things real couples do. Kiss. Make up. Fight about nothing. Argue over what that last text really meant. Understand this and understand it very carefully: You are not in a relationship people, so stop acting like it is. You are in a place similar to the Bermuda Triangle, where socks and hair ties disappear, and where the Loch Ness Monster resides- an environment where facts are scarce and things goes missing (like your sanity). You my friend, are in The Situation Room.

People who are in the Situation Room are not in relationships. If asked about the guy that’s been taking them out every night around 11pm, they will state that this is their “friend”. If they are constantly quizzed about the girl they’ve been seeing from back home and if this the “one”, a mumbled explanation that it is not really a relationship but a “situation” may spill from their lips. There is never a clear definition as to what these people mean in their lives, and how they are introduced to each other’s friends-if they even do that. Most people will come away from these conversation just as confused as the person in the “situation”. These conversations usually go a little something like this:

Inquiring Mind: “Well, are you seeing anyone else?”

Confused Soul: “Not really.”

Inquiring Mind: “Are they dating anyone else?”

Confused Soul: “Uh, I don’t’ think so.”

Inquiring Mind: “So, is this your boyfriend?”

Confused Soul: “No. But he pretty much is. I mean, he’s not ready for a commitment, but we know we mean a lot to each other so it’s complicated. I mean, I’m not waiting around for him, but I really think he’s going to realize that I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to him. I even think he loves me, but he doesn’t know how to express himself. It’s super complicated…

Inquisitive Mind:…

My head hurts just running this fictitious and ridiculous conversation through my brain. The reason it hurts so much is that I usually have this conversation with my friends 1-2 times per week. Sometimes the conversation is about them, sometimes it’s me trying to explain myself and my “situation”. But usually it’s about me. Trying to explain your “situation” to someone is like attempting to justify in plain language why Carrie picked Big over Aiden. Why Shaquille O’Neal has a commentary job. Why snacking on carrot sticks is better than eating popcorn. All potentially good in theory, but it really doesn’t make any sense. Being in this confusing state of emotions is tiring, exhausting, frustrating, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Well, maybe I would, but I would really have to loathe someone to wish them into a situational “relationship”. The most frustrating aspect of this dilemma is that we do it to ourselves.

Ladies and Gentlemen, no one puts baby in a “situation”. Only you can do that to yourself. From what I was told recently over large amounts of wine and Heineken is that men are simple creatures. As a man, you know exactly what you want and if you want it bad enough, you will do whatever it takes to get it. I know men who have stood in line for 2 days just to procure fancy sneakers. If that guy truly wants to be with a woman, he’ll go get her. Women? We can be a bit more complicated, but essentially we know what we want as well. As least we think we do. But oh, how we love to take up residence in the Situation Room!

Whether we’re hoping that The Situation will eventually ask us to be Mrs. Situation, or if we are waiting for him to change, we allow ourselves to stay in this grey area where you never know where you stand with someone. And no one should feel like that. The only people who should be in situations are those with a “1” in the beginning of their age and those who still pledge allegiance to Justin Bieber ( those little idiots deserve it). Everyone else should act like a grown up and say what you want and expect nothing less. Because if you don’t, you’re stuck in a situation sure to go south at any time. Oh, and here’s a newsflash: You cannot break up with someone if you were never in a relationship to begin with. The problem is, many people out there do not understand this concept. Luckily, you have Hot Mess Life in your life to explain this to you.

If neither you nor the person you’re involved with make that commitment to each other and define WHATEVER you’re doing as a relationship, then there is no break-up. There is no cheating. There is no boyfriend and there is no girlfriend. What exists is a situation in which you must simply have the strength to walk away. I’m not here to say that nothing can come from these situations ( yes, the word is being used too much, but that’s the point), but again, you must have the strength to stand up for yourself and demand more. Man or woman, it doesn’t matter- don’t allow yourself to get stuck in a place where you can’t tell your heart from your ass. If you want to be in a relationship, make that clear from the beginning. Otherwise, you might find yourself in an Oprah/Steadman-type scenario where no one knows what’s going on (although I completely understand why Steadman hangs around). Guys and gals, don’t stay in a situation in hopes that the other person will finally realize how great you are and that you fart rainbows, causing them to call you their girlfriend/boyfriend out in public. If you both can’t figure that out, then you need to be like Sexual Chocolate, drop the mike, and simply walk away.

I see more dysfunctional relationships now than I ever have in my thirty something years of living. It’s more popular to be the baby mother of a star athlete or an entertainer that it is to be a wife of a blue collar worker who is believes in monogamy. Think it’s far fetched? Think that the dysfunction exist only on television? Take a look around social media. How many Ray J’s do you have in your inbox? How many Joseline’s do you see on Instagram? How many single women versus married women do you know? How many of your female friends are involved with a guy who sits around playing Playstation or the new Xbox? How many of your female friends are “forever” single stating that they are waiting on their Boaz? How many guys do you know that are dealing with a chick with that K Michelle ass but have that Crazy Eyes personality?

Relationships and marriages are nothing more than fashion accessories. Instead of forming unions that strengthen each other, we have these overdue affairs that yield discontent, mistrust, and drive men and women further away from each other. We prefer to get married to a total stranger and think we know them after a couple of Cheesecake Factory dates and several sexual overtures that provided that temporary fix for our addiction. And we wonder why we are not happy! And the sad thing is, we don’t want other couples to be happy! Single people stand on the sidelines waiting for marriages to fall apart so that we can say “told you so”. We are worse than the paparazzi speaking evil on another person’s situation. Why can’t we let Jada be happy with Will? Why can’t we let Bey be happy with Jay?

So where did we go wrong? Glad you asked. We as singles stopped taking the appropriate time to learn the other person. We attempt to eliminate loneliness by any means necessary. We date people who are afraid to be themselves. We in turn are no better because we are living a charade in an attempt to be loved. We spend countless hours applying the mask in hopes that he/she will not see the scars. And that’s how we enter marriages in the Matrix today. So we enter the sanctuary unclean. Acquaintances that have divorced in the past all state the same thing: they didn’t really know their spouse. He never knew that she didn’t know how to manage money. She didn’t know that he really didn’t have a job. He didn’t know that she couldn’t cook and that all the meals she said she prepared were from various restaurants around town. She didn’t know that he gets angry when he drinks. But I digress . . . . . .

So again, where did we go wrong? In my humble opinion, I believe that we have stopped dating our friends. Let that sit for a minute. Why is it so inhumane to want your partner for life to be your friend? If you really think about your close friends and how your relationships grew, you begin to realize the amount of time that was required to develop to the point you are at now. My close friends are in the same circle as my children. For me, I have several brethren who have known me since grade school that have continued to love me through my evolution (and trust, there has been a lot of shit I’ve done to get to this point!). These brothers would post my bail money, come to my defense in a fight that I started, loan me their last, let me borrow their car so I could take a girl I liked out . . . . . you get the gist. That’s what friends do (no matter how ratchet they may be). So why doesn’t it behoove us to have someone like that in our lives as a mate? We take so much time trying to appear to be something else, afraid to be ourselves because we don’t want that potential mate to see our scars. We don’t want them to see our stretch marks. We don’t want them to see our cinnamon rolls. We want to share ourselves with others with the lights off. We are afraid to be naked with the lights on. So why is it a surprise that when the lights come on, the potential person leaves?

So I want to put all of us on the spot today. Why are we afraid to date friends? I mean really . . . . . . . .

The very title of this piece is an oxymoron- I don’t think there’s ever an appropriate time to complain about your job, especially while ON THE JOB. I’m not sure if this is a feeling that people who really don’t enjoy employment possess in their soul, but it’s ridiculous.

This thought was brought on by a recent trip I took, that involved the attendants on my flight. Now, I like to secure a seat in the last row of the plane where I prefer to stretch out. Outside of a bathroom disaster, it allows me to relax and enjoy some quiet time. Unfortunately, Laverne and Shirley were manning this flight, and decided to give me a reason to consider first class the next time I boarded a plane. They made the sound decision to conduct a rather saucy bitch session while people were boarding, and eventually, during our time up in the air. Loud enough for all to hear ( I swear I was not trying to eavesdrop), they went on a vicious rant about new flight attendants, training, pay increase (and the lack thereof), and even the supposed attitude of the pilot. It got out if hand when they began discussing the type of passengers on certain flights (complaining about not wanting to take trips to Mexico for the next month to avoid “all the white trash on the plane”). To say I was shocked was an understatement. I was very close to writing a complaint letter to the airlines (I’m pretty good with those), but it was my birthday trip, and once I landed I started thinking about wine, and that thought was gone.

What I took away from that experience was their audacity to complain about the very work they were doing while they were on the job. I know that not all jobs are ideal, work conditions are never perfect, and not everyone will get paid what they deserve. But there’s a certain way to conduct yourself and that ain’t it. What if I had been a secret shopper? What if we were secretly taping an episode of Undercover Boss? Although I’m pretty sure they would know that the CEO of Blah Blah Airlines is not a five-foot 27-year-old with a snoring issue, I miss the days that you kept your personal complaints about your employment to yourself. Whatever happened to just moaning to your family when you get home at the end of a long day, after your suitcase has been dropped down by the doorway? Or in many adult’s cases, talking to a glass wine, who knows how to make everything better after a long day? It still blows my mind that these flight attendants, and so many others are comfortable with voicing their disdain for their work WHILE AT WORK.

It does not help that social media has exploded. Case in point: there was a young lady in recent weeks who took to Twitter to complain about her job, that she was none to excited about going to the next day. What made it even worse is that she had not even started the job yet! She was set to start the next day, and apparently was not smart enough to realize that her future boss would see it ( it IS the Internet), and feel some type of way about it. Needless to say, she was not able to enjoy the free pizza of her labor, as she was fired immediately ( via Twitter, nonetheless, with an extremely witty response from the boss). How are you going to get fired on yo’ day off? She was worse that Craig, because she didn’t even make it to Day 1.

Apparently, discretion and professionalism has been tossed out the window for these people. But I know a lot of people outside these windows that would love to have the job you are moaning about. As I mentioned before, no job or career (there’s a difference, just ask Chris Rock) will be perfect, and void of complications. But you need to keep that to yourself. Whining and complaining in front of the public or on Twitter and Instagram will not do you any good, and you might find yourself jobless. If you have legitimate concerns about your place of employment, grow up and speak to someone about it ( i.e. your boss or respective HR department). Be the change you want to see. Anything else, you’re probably just ungrateful, lazy, or guilty. Just go ask Pizza Girl.

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As I grow older, I’ve come to understand that mistakes are inevitable. In my grade school years, it would pain me to make mistakes. Literally. I was a bit of a perfectionist back in the day (and still am to an extent). I remember that I would spend hours on end at the kitchen table trying to figure out word problems. When I finished, I would turn to the back of the textbook where the odd answers for each chapter would be located. When my answer didn’t match the textbook answer, I would return back at the problem. I would look at the method I used to solve it. I would begin to work the problem again. And again. And again. At times, if I couldn’t figure out where I went wrong, I would declare that the textbook was wrong and that I was right! Then there would be times where I would ball up the paper I was using to solve and answer the problems and throw it across the table. I would slam my book and walk off in a huff. I would normally walk away from the table saying to myself, “How dare that book try to tell ME that I’m wrong!” There would even be times where I was so frustrated that I would go in the bathroom and just sit on the toilet, near tears, because I just couldn’t figure out the problem. Not being able to figure out the problem made me feel inferior. And sitting in the room adjacent from the kitchen, my mother would be watching my meltdown while she attempted to watch the evening news. Whenever she heard me emerge from the bathroom, she would call me to where she was sitting on the couch and tell me “breathe baby . . . relax . . . it will be okay”. I would walk back into the kitchen and try again. And after a drink of water and clearing my head, the correct method to solve the problem would come to me. Too bad I didn’t apply this method to my relationships . . . . . .

Mistakes are inevitable. None of us are perfect. As I’ve said before, we all have baggage or walls that we have built up. Trust me, I have enough mistakes for three novels (and counting). As I get older, I’m trying to eliminate the “what ifs” also known as my regrets. I can’t even begin to tell you how many regrets I have when it comes to relationships! Whether it was my first marriage or my most recent break up where I believe I lost out on a Beyonce/Jay-Z kinda love, I’ve allowed previous hurts to prohibit something that could have been special. And I know what most of you will say; things come to make us stronger and prepare us for what is to come. Yeah, this is true. I give you that one. But what I also believe to be true is that some of us don’t catch the lesson being taught the first time around. We see what the answer is but we can’t accept that our answer is wrong. We throw the test paper across the table and slam the book down. Instead of taking a moment to breathe, clear our mind, and regroup, we believe that we are right and the textbook answer is wrong. We fail to matriculate because we are not good students when it comes to love. We are remedial. So when we find ourselves with another individual who is also remedial as it relates to relationships, we end up in a mess that fortifies our walls.

So you’re probably wondering why I chose the picture above? It’s OBVIOUS that the guy has given up on the female who continues to build up her wall. It’s OBVIOUS that every guy that I know relates to this picture. When I found this picture circulating on Facebook, I wanted to use this to fuel an argument as to why Black men date outside of their race. A female friend of mine told me that I had a death wish! And at the time, I wanted to ignite a riot of sorts. But once I pitched the idea to a couple of close friends from different time zones, I put down my rocks. I looked at the picture again. The man in the picture is not angry. He’s tired. By looking at the picture, we don’t know why the young lady is continuing to put up bricks. We don’t know how long the young man has been trying to tear the wall down. At the end of the day, he’s tired of the wall and just can’t continue anymore.

So I continued the debate with my close friends and another question surfaced; Why do your relationships keep failing and what part do YOU play in it? That’s right. What part do YOU play in it? I’ve been asked this question before but when she asked on this given night, it was like someone threw a cold glass of water on my face. When she posed the question, there may have been two friends who answered honestly during the conversation. Many of my other friends chose not to answer. Then you had those three brave souls that preferred to use generalizations of why relationships don’t work and didn’t answer the question. Let me add that the friends that answered truthfully were MEN (no surprise there). So I want to ask that question again to see if people (and by people, I mean women) will answer truthfully and get off the short bus. What walls do YOU have up that keep YOU from meaningful relationships? What are YOUR what ifs?

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“I don’t do black music/I don’t do white music/ I make fight music/ for high school kids -Eminem

Eminem won the Grammy for Best Rap Album this week, thus preventing a small riot that was sure to ensue had the Thunder From Down Under, known as Iggy Azalea, won the award. There has been a recent uproar from many folks who feel that Iggy should not have even been nominated, being a White, Australian girl who uses a fake accent to sound “street”. This sentiment is felt by many, but has also spurned additional discussions about white artists “taking over” the historically African-American dominated music genres of rap and R&B. With popular artists such as Iggy, Robin Thicke, and Justin Timberlake cementing themselves on Hot 99 Jamz stations all over the country, many feel that once again, white people are hijacking something that Black people aren’t able to keep for themselves. I may be expressing the sentiment a bit dramatically, but you will not be surprised how many people are out there, both black and white, who feel this way.

I for one, think it’s completely ridiculous, and apparently I’m writing this to tell you why. This post already has the makings of a minor rant, as so many thoughts are swirling through my mind right now. So you’ll have to excuse me if I go on random tangents here and there, in the next few hundred words. I am one of those individuals ( not sure if I’m rare or not) who believe music is music- no matter who creates it. If it sounds good, I’m going to listen to it, most likely at a very loud volume. Do I understand that certain genres of music were originated in particular cultures, neighborhoods, and ethnicities? Of course. However, I don’t think any race or ethnicity has any ownership over a genre of music, because well, it’s MUSIC. Music expresses feelings that are felt by billions of people, and the ability to express it should not be confined to one race of people.

The notion that white people have taken control over “black music” is asinine, and it’s rooted in the wrong argument- people, you’re mad at the wrong things. Here are a few discussions I’ve heard or seen online:

Iggy Azalea isn’t a real rap artist because she’s Australian, and raps with a ghetto accent

The Australian above shouldn’t even be nominated for a Grammy

The fascination with Eminem is old, he’s just a guy who can rap fast

Justin Timberlake and Robin Thicke are more popular on the R&B charts than traditional black R&B artists, and that’s not fair

Man, where do I start? On the topic of Iggy who inspired this post in the first place, I think the animosity is astounding. Who can fault someone loving music so much, that she wants to emulate the artists she listens to? What makes her changing her voice an automatic disqualifier for her music being legitimate rap? She rhymes in “Work” that she listened to all the Lil Wayne “Carter” installments as inspiration, until she got her deal. She expresses being the only person she knew listening to Tupac. And now you’re mad that she put out a pretty nice album that received recognition from millions? If you’re going to be mad at someone for changing their voice, tell Nicki Minaj to eliminate a minimum of 3 of the voices she screeches on her albums. Don’t get me started on that one. No one is in an uproar that she’s won the BET Award for Best Female Hip Hop Artist 5 years in a row, with lyrics like “I look like yes/and you look like no”. The fact that anyone can be mad at Iggy or even Macklemore being nominated in a rap category but no one is burning their turntables when Wiz Khalifa gets nominated for a Grammy is hilarious. Now when it comes to Eminem, folks need to let the “white card” go. The man is one of the best rappers to ever embrace a mike, regardless of race. Anyone who can somehow lace together “youthful exuberance” and “nuisance” and make you forget that those words don’t actually rhyme is a genius. And it’s true, he does spit rhymes rather quickly, but that’s because he’s amazing. Last time I checked, Twista doesn’t have a Grammy.

I also see a trend with the “haters” if you will ( and I hate that term, so you know I’m upset). All the artists that people are upset with are actually pretty darn good. Is that why you’re mad, bro? Have you listened to any Justin Timberlake album??? You can listen to any one of them ALL the way through! Jesus, on his last record, he literally had two songs in one within EACH CUT. That’s why it was called an “experience”. But people are upset that he’s played at night during the Slow Jams hour on the 105.9. And all because he’s white? Do you want to be blindly supportive of someone else instead? Like Ne-yo, who somehow puts out the exact same song every year but with a different title and verse from Pitbull, confusing everybody? And let me not even say anything about Bruno Mars being the purest voice out there, who has the soul of a little MJ? Are we now going to have a riot against Filipinos?

No one is trying to steal anything from anyone, because music cannot be taken away from you. It emits emotions from people that they didn’t know they had. It makes you feel good, it makes you cry. It makes you sit in a room with a bottle of Chardonnay and think about your ex. Music is music, no matter who sings it or spits the next verse. So get over it people, and go listen to Yelawolf on the Scarface channel on Pandora.

Do you remember the first time you fell in love? I wrote this poem during my ninth grade year at Davidson Fine Arts where I fell in love for the first time. The high was so exhilarating that I didn’t want to come down at all. Love was simple, yet satisfying. Love to me was writing letters about how much I missed her company. Letters would detail how I would lie to my parents about staying after school for a school function in order to meet her at the downtown library to share an hour or so of her time. Love was letting her wear my New York Giants Triple Fat Goose jacket when it was cold so she could be warm (and anyone that knows me could tell you that jacket was my prized possession) Love was redialing the hotline for Foxie 103 for thirty-minutes plus to request “Two Occasions”. Love was late night phone calls full of “alright you hang up, no you hang up, on three hang ups”.

Love had complete control of my fourteen year old life. I couldn’t focus on anything but her. She had a beautiful, warm smile. Her eyes shined beneath her glasses whenever she looked my way. She hypnotized me with those hips that would put a Real Atlanta Housewife to shame. The fact that I was failing classes for the first time in my life didn’t even phase me. She was my sun, moon, and universe. I was going to marry this girl with no job and we were gonna live happily ever after. So it was no surprise that when Valentine’s Day was on the horizon, I was scheming of ways to show my future that she was appreciated and wanted in my space. My schemes involved borrowing money from two of my closest friends at the time so that she could have the best Valentine’s Day. My mind escapes me as to what I bought her but what I do remember is that she got me a white bear with a red balloon with “I Love You” in a plastic, cylinder case. It probably cost no more than five dollars at the time but it meant the world to me. It was the first time that a female outside of my mother purchased something for me because she honestly cared for me. And honestly, that was the best gift any female has gotten me for Valentine’s Day to this date.

February 14, 2015 will be the first time since high school that I will not obligated to give a vital organ to pay for a Valentine’s Day gift/package/vacation. (and trust me, I’m PERFECTLY cool with it . . . . ) Valentine’s Day is not like it was back in 1992. A day that was so innocent back then is now seen as a “happy unimaginative, consumerist-oriented and entirely arbitrary, manipulative and shallow interpretation of romance” day in the Matrix. For women, Valentine’s Day is a secret competition at work to see which husband/boyfriend can out spend the others. Females silently laying in wait for a floral delivery to come to their place of work with a simple card attached to two dozen roses that will die in several days and candy that the wife/girlfriend will complain took her away from her Daniel fast. Or better yet, females praying the husband/boyfriend will come to their job dressed in his finest suit, gift in hand, and whisk them out to lunch. And for what? To make her co-workers jealous. For guys, it’s another day that we have to appear happy purchasing items that damn near cost as much as the Christmas gift that we purchased just 51 days ago. (Yep, not even two whole months removed from Christmas!) It seems that every ad is for Zales, Pro Flowers, or Sherri’s Berries. Rare are the ads for a new television or sound equipment during this sweeps week of cuffing season. What does the husband/boyfriend get for Valentine’s Day? Let’s just say it’s the same thing that he got for Christmas and his birthday. . . . .

Now don’t get me wrong, I still like to shower my lady with love . . . when I do have a lady. However, I feel that Valentine’s should be reciprocal in the gift giving department. Am I the only the guy that feels this way? Ladies, what are you doing for YOUR man for Valentine’s? And please don’t say “giving him some” . . . . . . . . . . .

So I finally got around to watching “Gone Girl” this weekend. I heard so much about it from my male peers on social media. I had to see what the buzz was about. And then . . . . . I watched. Most of the time with complete interest and the last thirty-five minutes in complete anger. I found myself bewildered at how this Nick character ended up married to this psychopath named Amy. Amy appears to be the woman that every man wants. She’s beautiful, well educated, and comes from a wealthy family. She watches sports with Nick and helps drink his domestic beer. Her sexual appetite satisfies Nick. Amy lets him get at her “good good” whenever he wants (a personal favorite). Hell, her mom even models her children’s book series after her! She couldn’t have been more than a size two and had those stand up, perky breasts. With all these things going for her, Nick does what any smart man would do; he marries her. Unbeknown to Nick, all of these positive attributes are nothing more than elaborate lies smoothed over a mound of crazy. And sure enough, the crazy comes out after recession happens and Nick loses his mom. Amy frames Nick for her murder and then has the nerve to come back when her plan backfires! I was left in complete dismay as Nick was forced to stay with his psychotic wife in order to safeguard his unborn child. It’s a tale of crazy that I’m all too familiar with. Unlike Nick, there is no way in hell I’m living with crazy. I would have killed Amy and did the “NaeNae” while she breathed her last breath. Just kidding, just kidding . . . . well . . . not really. . .

So I started to wonder, what if Nick actually walked away from Amy? What if he left her in Missouri and went to somewhere, oh say Atlanta, Georgia, and started to date again? Nick goes through counseling as he starts his job as a English professor at Georgia State University. He’s been removed from Amy for over a year and wants to date again. Like most of us, Nick desires companionship. He’s broken but who’s to say he can’t date again? So ladies, who’s gonna date Nick? I mean if his profile came up on Match.com or if he swore off all White women and set up a profile on BlackPeopleMeet.com, who would date him?

Nick would be like a lot of us dating again in our thirties and forties; damage goods. We are all just waiting our turn as used cars in love’s car emporium. Most of us come to the car lot expecting a brand new car. However, the sign clearly says “used”. Each car will appear to be new but beneath the sparkle of the rims and the shine of the new paint job, there is wear and tear that you will have to manage. You may have overlooked that tiny crack in the seat but over the next six months, that tiny crack has become what appears to be several cracks. You wash the car and start to see faint scratches that have been touched up with what appears to be finger nail polish. The more you drive your used car, the more issues you start to find. It is in this moment that you make a conscious decision; you accept the car for what it is because the overall value outweighs its imperfections.

With all that being said, why don’t we give each other the same patience and care that we give an inanimate object that we purchase off a used car lot? I know this may shock some of you ladies but we ALL have baggage (yes even you). It doesn’t matter if it’s packaged as cheap garbage bags or exclusive Louis Vutton, we all have baggage. However in the Matrix we are taught to believe that ideal person has no issues. Just look at your Facebook timeline. How many “sensitive male quotes” are you exposed to on the daily? I tend to laugh because according to these quotes, a man should watch Lifetime, cry when sharing his feelings all the time, be willing to talk 24/7, prefer to go shopping or to church than to the game, ectetera, etcetera, etcetera. Oh, did I mention that he needs to look like Ildris Elba? How can a man be a man while aspiring to become a woman?

So my question for this Wednesday has to deal with patience. I know so many people that are like Nick. They have issues and it requires a certain kind of patience to date. So the question is simply how much patience should you give a person when dating? Is there a way to avoid psychopaths like Amy? Ladies as always, I’m looking forward to hearing from you . . . . . . .